4G: LTE/LTE-Advanced for Mobile Broadband

Forcing

Chapter 1

Background of LTE

Publisher Summary

This chapter describes the background for the development of long-term evolution (LTE) system, in terms of events, activities, organizations, and other factors. The LTE is also called 4G, but many claim that LTE release 10, also referred to as LTE-Advanced, is the true 4G evolution step. However, LTE and LTE-Advanced is the same technology, with the Advanced label primarily being added to highlight the relation between LTE release 10 (LTE-Advanced) and ITU/IMT-Advanced. This does not make LTE-Advanced a different system than LTE, and it is not in any way the final evolution step to be taken for LTE. Moreover, work on developing LTE and LTE-Advanced is performed as a continuing task within 3GPP, the same forum that developed the first 3G system (WCDMA/HSPA). This chapter begins with discussing the technologies and mobile systems leading up to the starting point for 3G mobile systems. The chapter then explains international activities in the ITU that were part of shaping 3G, and the 3G evolution and the market and technology drivers behind LTE. The chapter concludes with describing the standardization process that provided the detailed specification work leading to the LTE systems deployed and in operation today.

This chapter provides a historical overview of the evolution of mobile communication from the first generation of analog cellular systems, through second generation (2G) systems such as GSM and 3G systems including WCDMA/HSPA, into 4G LTE. ITU and its activities related to IMT and IMT-Advanced are described, as is the process in 3GPP, the organization responsible for developing the GSM, WCDMA/HSPA and LTE technical specifications.

1.1 Introduction

Mobile communications has become an everyday commodity. In the last decades, it has evolved from being an expensive technology for a few selected individuals to today’s ubiquitous systems used by a majority of the world’s population. From the first experiments with radio communication by Guglielmo Marconi in the 1890s, the road to truly mobile radio communication has been quite long. To understand the complex mobile-communication systems of today, it is important to understand where they came from and how cellular systems have evolved. The task of developing mobile technologies has also changed, from being a national or regional concern, to becoming an increasingly complex task undertaken by global standards-developing organizations such as the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and involving thousands of people.

Mobile communication technologies are often divided into generations, with 1G being the analog mobile radio systems of the 1980s, 2G the first digital mobile systems, and 3G the first mobile systems handling broadband data. The Long-Term Evolution (LTE) is often called 4G, but many also claim that LTE release 10, also referred to as LTE-Advanced, is the true 4G evolution step, with the first release of LTE (release 8) then being labeled as 3.9G. This continuing race of increasing sequence numbers of mobile system generations is in fact just a matter of labels. What is important is the actual system capabilities and how they have evolved, which is the topic of this chapter.

In this context, it must first be pointed out that LTE and LTE-Advanced is the same technology, with the Advanced label primarily being added to highlight the relation between LTE release 10 (LTE-Advanced) and ITU/IMT-Advanced, as discussed later. This does not make LTE-Advanced a different system than LTE and it is not in any way the final evolution step to be taken for LTE. Another important aspect is that the work on developing LTE and LTE-Advanced is performed as a continuing task within 3GPP, the same forum that developed the first 3G system (WCDMA/HSPA).

This chapter describes the background for the development of the LTE system, in terms of events, activities, organizations and other factors that have played an important role. First, the technologies and mobile systems leading up to the starting point for 3G mobile systems will be discussed. Next, international activities in the ITU that were part of shaping 3G and the 3G evolution and the market and technology drivers behind LTE will be discussed. The final part of the chapter describes the standardization process that provided the detailed specification work leading to the LTE systems deployed and in operation today.

1.2 Evolution of Mobile Systems Before LTE

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the first commercial car-borne telephony service in 1946, operated by AT&T. In 1947 AT&T also introduced the cellular concept of reusing radio frequencies, which became fundamental to all subsequent mobile-communication systems. Similar systems were operated by several monopoly telephone administrations and wire-line operators during the 1950s and 1960s, using bulky and power-hungry equipment and providing car-borne services for a very limited number of users.

The big uptake of subscribers and usage came when mobile communication became an international concern involving several interested parties, in the beginning mainly the operators. The first international mobile communication systems were started in the early 1980s; the best-known ones are NMT that was started up in the Nordic countries, AMPS in the USA, TACS in Europe, and J-TACS in Japan. Equipment was still bulky, mainly car-borne, and voice quality was often inconsistent, with cross-talk between users being a common problem. With NMT came the concept of roaming, giving a service also for users traveling outside the area of their home operator. This also gave a larger market for mobile phones, attracting more companies into the mobile-communication business.

The analog first-generation cellular systems supported plain old telephony services (POTS) – that is, voice with some related supplementary services. With the advent of digital communication during the 1980s, the opportunity to develop a second generation of mobile-communication standards and systems, based on digital technology, surfaced. With digital technology came an opportunity to increase the capacity of the systems, to give a more consistent quality of the service, and to develop much more attractive and truly mobile devices.

In Europe, the GSM (originally Groupe Spécial Mobile, later Global System for Mobile communications) project to develop a pan-European mobile-telephony system was initiated in the mid 1980s by the telecommunication administrations in CEPT¹ and later continued within the new European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI). The GSM standard was based on Time-Division Multiple Access (TDMA), as were the US-TDMA standard and the Japanese PDC standard that were introduced in the same time frame. A somewhat later development of a Code-Division Multiple Access (CDMA) standard called IS-95 was completed in the USA in 1993.

All these standards were narrowband in the sense that they targeted low-bandwidth services such as voice. With the second-generation digital mobile communications came also the opportunity to provide data services over the mobile-communication networks. The primary data services introduced in 2G were text messaging (Short Message Services, SMS) and circuit-switched data services enabling e-mail and other data applications, initially at a modest peak data rate of 9.6 kbit/s. Higher data rates were introduced later in evolved 2G systems by assigning multiple time slots to a user and through modified coding schemes.

Packet data over cellular systems became a reality during the second half of the 1990s, with General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) introduced in GSM and packet data also added to other cellular technologies such as the Japanese PDC standard. These technologies are often referred to as 2.5G. The success of the wireless data service iMode in Japan, which included a complete ecosystem for service delivery, charging etc., gave a very clear indication of the potential for applications over packet data in mobile systems, in spite of the fairly low data rates supported at the time.

With the advent of 3G and the higher-bandwidth radio interface of UTRA (Universal Terrestrial Radio Access) came possibilities for a range of new services that were only hinted at with 2G and 2.5G. The 3G radio access development is today handled in 3GPP. However, the initial steps for 3G were taken in the early 1990s, long before 3GPP was formed.

What also set the stage for 3G was the internationalization of cellular standards. GSM was a pan-European project, but it quickly attracted worldwide interest when the GSM standard was deployed in a number of countries outside Europe. A global standard gains in economy of scale, since the market for products becomes larger. This has driven a much tighter international cooperation around 3G cellular technologies than for the earlier generations.

1.2.1 The First 3G Standardization

Work on a third-generation mobile communication started in ITU (International Telecommunication Union) in the 1980s, first under the label Future Public Land Mobile Telecommunications Systems (FPLMTS), later changed to IMT-2000 [1]. The World Administrative Radio Congress WARC-92 identified 230 MHz of spectrum for IMT-2000 on a worldwide basis. Of these 230 MHz, 2 × 60 MHz was identified as paired spectrum for FDD (Frequency-Division Duplex) and 35 MHz as unpaired spectrum for TDD (Time-Division Duplex), both for terrestrial use. Some spectrum was also set aside for satellite services. With that, the stage was set to specify IMT-2000.

In parallel with the widespread deployment and evolution of 2G mobile-communication systems during the 1990s, substantial efforts were put into 3G research activities worldwide. In Europe, a number of partially EU-funded projects resulted in a multiple access concept that included a Wideband CDMA component that was input to ETSI in 1996. In Japan, the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) was at the same time defining a 3G wireless communication technology based on Wideband CDMA and also in the USA a Wideband CDMA concept called WIMS was developed within the T1.P1² committee. South Korea also started work on Wideband CDMA at this time.

When the standardization activities for 3G started in ETSI in 1996, there were WCDMA concepts proposed both from a European research project (FRAMES) and from the ARIB standardization in Japan. The Wideband CDMA proposals from Europe and Japan were merged and came out as part of the winning concept in early 1998 in the European work on Universal Mobile Telecommunication Services (UMTS), which was the European name for 3G. Standardization of WCDMA continued in parallel in several standards groups until the end of 1998, when the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) was formed by standards-developing organizations from all regions of the world. This solved the problem of trying to maintain parallel development of aligned specifications in multiple regions. The present organizational partners of 3GPP are ARIB (Japan), CCSA (China), ETSI (Europe), ATIS (USA), TTA (South Korea), and TTC (Japan).

At this time, when the standardization bodies were ready to put the details into the 3GPP specifications, work on 3G mobile systems had already been ongoing for some time in the international arena within the ITU-R. That work was influenced by and also provided a broader international framework for the standardization work in 3GPP.

1.3 ITU Activities

1.3.1 IMT-2000 and IMT-Advanced

ITU-R Working Party 5D (WP5D) has the responsibility for IMT systems, which is the umbrella name for 3G (IMT-2000) and 4G (IMT-Advanced). WP5D does not write technical specifications for IMT, but has kept the role of defining IMT in cooperation with the regional standardization bodies and to maintain a set of recommendations for IMT-2000 and IMT-Advanced.

The main IMT-2000 recommendation is ITU-R M.1457 [2], which identifies the IMT-2000 radio interface specifications (RSPC). The recommendation contains a family of radio interfaces, all included on an equal basis. The family of six terrestrial radio interfaces is illustrated in Figure 1.1, which also shows the Standards Developing Organizations (SDO) or Partnership Projects that produce the specifications. In addition, there are several IMT-2000 satellite radio interfaces defined, not illustrated in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 The definition of IMT-2000 in ITU-R.

For each radio interface, M.1457 contains an overview of the radio interface, followed by a list of references to the detailed specifications. The actual specifications are maintained by the individual SDOs and M.1457 provides references to the specifications maintained by each SDO.

With the continuing development of the IMT-2000 radio interfaces, including the evolution of UTRA to Evolved UTRA, the ITU recommendations also need to be updated. ITU-R WP5D continuously revises recommendation M.1457 and at the time of writing it is in its ninth version. Input to the updates is provided by the SDOs and Partnership Projects writing the standards. In the latest revision of ITU-R M.1457, LTE (or E-UTRA) is included in the family through the 3GPP family members for UTRA FDD and TDD, as shown in the figure.

In addition to maintaining the IMT-2000 specifications, a main activity in ITU-R WP5D is the work on systems beyond IMT-2000, now called IMT-Advanced. The term IMT-Advanced is used for systems that include new radio interfaces supporting the new capabilities of systems beyond IMT-2000, as demonstrated with the van diagram in Figure 1.2. The step into IMT-Advanced capabilities is seen by ITU-R as the step into 4G, the next generation of mobile technologies after 3G.

Figure 1.2 Illustration of capabilities of IMT-2000 and IMT-Advanced, based on the framework described in ITU -R Recommendation M.1645 [4].

The process for defining IMT-Advanced was set by ITU-R WP5D [3] and was quite similar to the process used in developing the IMT-2000 recommendations. ITU-R first concluded studies for IMT-Advanced of services and technologies, market forecasts, principles for standardization, estimation of spectrum needs, and identification of candidate frequency bands [4]. Evaluation criteria were agreed, where proposed technologies were to be evaluated according to a set of minimum technical requirements. All ITU members and other organizations were then invited to the process through a circular letter [5] in March 2008. After submission of six candidate technologies in 2009, an evaluation was performed in cooperation with external bodies such as standards-developing organizations, industry forums, and national groups.

An evolution of LTE as developed by 3GPP was submitted as one candidate to the ITU-R evaluation. While actually being a new release (release 10) of the LTE system and thus an integral part of the continuing LTE development, the candidate was named LTE-Advanced for the purpose of ITU submission. 3GPP also set up its own set of technical requirements for LTE-Advanced, with the ITU-R requirements as a basis. The specifics of LTE-Advanced will be described in more detail as part of the description of LTE later in this book. The performance evaluation of LTE-Advanced for the ITU-R submission is described further in Chapter 18.

The target of the process was always harmonization of the candidates through consensus building. ITU-R determined in October 2010 that two technologies will be included in the first release of IMT-Advanced, those two being LTE release 10 (LTE-Advanced) and WirelessMAN-Advanced [6] based on the IEEE 802.16m specification. The two can be viewed as the family of IMT-Advanced technologies as shown in Figure 1.3. The main IMT-Advanced recommendation, identifying the IMT-Advanced radio interface specifications, is presently named ITU-R.[IMT.RSPEC] [7] and will be completed during 2011. As for the corresponding IMT-2000 specification, it will contain an overview of each radio interface, followed by a list of references to the detailed specifications.

Figure 1.3 Radio interface technologies for IMT-Advanced.

1.3.2 Spectrum for IMT Systems

Another major activity within ITU-R concerning IMT-Advanced has been to identify globally available spectrum, suitable for IMT systems. The spectrum work has involved sharing studies between IMT and other technologies in those bands. Adequate spectrum availability and globally harmonized spectrum are identified as essential for IMT-Advanced.

Spectrum for 3G was first identified at the World Administrative Radio Congress WARC-92, where 230 MHz was identified as intended for use by national administrations that want to implement IMT-2000. The so-called IMT-2000 core band at 2 GHz is in this frequency range and was the first band where 3G systems were deployed.

Additional spectrum was identified for IMT-2000 at later World Radio communication conferences. WRC-2000 identified the existing 2G bands at 800/900 MHz and 1800/1900 MHz plus an additional 190 MHz of spectrum at 2.6 GHz, all for IMT-2000. As additional spectrum for IMT-2000, WRC’07 identified a band at 450 MHz, the so-called digital dividend at 698–806 MHz, plus an additional 300 MHz of spectrum at higher frequencies. The applicability of these new bands varies on a regional and national basis.

The worldwide frequency arrangements for IMT-2000 are outlined in ITU-R recommendation M.1036 [8], which is presently being updated with the arrangements for the most recent frequency bands added at WRC’07. The recommendation outlines the regional variations in how the bands are implemented and also identifies which parts of the spectrum are paired and which are unpaired. For the paired spectrum, the bands for uplink (mobile transmit) and downlink (base-station transmit) are identified for Frequency-Division Duplex (FDD) operation. The unpaired bands can, for example, be used for Time-Division Duplex (TDD) operation. Note that the band that is most globally deployed for 3G is still 2 GHz.

1.4 Drivers for LTE

The evolution of 3G systems into 4G is driven by the creation and development of new services for mobile devices, and is enabled by advancement of the technology available for mobile systems. There has also been an evolution of the environment in which mobile systems are deployed and operated, in terms of competition between mobile operators, challenges from other mobile technologies, and new regulation of spectrum use and market aspects of mobile systems.

The rapid evolution of the technology used in telecommunication systems, consumer electronics, and specifically mobile devices has been remarkable in the last 20 years. Moore’s law illustrates this and indicates a continuing evolution of processor performance and increased memory size, often combined with reduced size, power consumption, and cost for devices. High-resolution color displays and megapixel camera sensors are also coming into all types of mobile devices. Combined with a high-speed internet backbone often based on optical fiber networks, we see that a range of technology enablers are in place to go hand-in-hand with advancement in mobile communications technology such as LTE.

The rapid increase in use of the internet to provide all kinds of services since the 1990s started at the same time as 2G and 3G mobile systems came into widespread use. The natural next step was that those internet-based services also moved to the mobile devices, creating what is today know as mobile broadband. Being able to support the same Internet Protocol (IP)-based services in a mobile device that people use at home with a fixed broadband connection is a major challenge and a prime driver for the evolution of LTE. A few services were already supported by the evolved 2.5G systems, but it is not until the systems are designed primarily for IP-based services that the real mobile IP revolution can take off. An interesting aspect of the migration of broadband services to mobile devices is that a mobile flavor is also added. The mobile position and the mobility and roaming capabilities do in fact create a whole new range of services tailored to the mobile environment.

Fixed telephony (POTS) and earlier generations of mobile technology were built for circuit switched services, primarily voice. The first data services over GSM were circuit switched, with packet-based GPRS coming in as a later addition. This also influenced the first development of 3G, which was based on circuit switched data, with packet-switched services as an add-on. It was not until the 3G evolution into HSPA and later LTE/LTE-Advanced that packet-switched services and IP were made the primary design target. The old circuit-switched services remain, but will on LTE be provided over IP, with Voice-over IP (VoIP) as an example.

IP is in itself service agnostic and thereby enables a range of services with different requirements. The main service-related design parameters for a radio interface supporting a variety of services are:

• Data rate. Many services with lower data rates such as voice services are important and still occupy a large part of a mobile network’s overall capacity, but it is the higher data rate services that drive the design of the radio interface. The ever increasing demand for higher data rates for web browsing, streaming and file transfer pushes the peak data rates for mobile systems from kbit/s for 2G, to Mbit/s for 3G and getting close to Gbit/s for 4G.

• Delay. Interactive services such as real-time gaming, but also web browsing and interactive file transfer, have requirements for very low delay, making it a primary design target. There are, however, many applications such as e-mail and television where the delay requirements are not as strict. The delay for a packet sent from a server to a client and back is called latency.

• Capacity. From the mobile system operator’s point of view, it is not only the peak data rates provided to the end-user that are of importance, but also the total data rate that can be provided on average from each deployed base station site and per hertz of licensed spectrum. This measure of capacity is called spectral efficiency. In the case of capacity shortage in a mobile system, the Quality-of-Service (QoS) for the individual end-users may be degraded.

How these three main design parameters influenced the development of LTE is described in more detail in Chapter 7 and an evaluation of what performance is achieved for the design parameters above is presented in Chapter 18.

The demand for new services and for higher peak bit rates and system capacity is not only met by evolution of the technology to 4G. There is also a demand for more spectrum resources to expand systems and the demand also leads to more competition between an increasing number of mobile operators and between alternative technologies to provide mobile broadband services. An overview of some technologies other than LTE is given in Chapter 19.

With more spectrum coming into use for mobile broadband, there is a need to operate mobile systems in a number of different frequency bands, in spectrum allocations of different sizes and sometimes also in fragmented spectrum. This calls for high spectrum flexibility with the possibility for a varying channel bandwidth, which was also a driver and an essential design parameter for LTE.

The demand for new mobile services and the evolution of the radio interface to LTE have served as drivers to evolve the core network. The core network developed for GSM in the 1980s was extended to support GPRS, EDGE, and WCDMA in the 1990s, but was still very much built around the circuit-switched domain. A System Architecture Evolution (SAE) was initiated at the same time as LTE development started and has resulted in an Evolved Packet Core (EPC), developed to support HSPA and LTE/LTE-Advanced, focusing on the packet-switched domain. For more details on SAE/EPC, please refer to [9].

1.5 Standardization of LTE

With a framework for IMT systems set up by the ITU-R, with spectrum made available by the WRC and with an ever increasing demand for better performance, the task of specifying the LTE system that meets the design targets falls on 3GPP. 3GPP writes specifications for 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile systems, and 3GPP technologies are the most widely deployed in the world, with more than 4.5 billion connections in 2010. In order to understand how 3GPP works, it is important to understand the process of writing standards.

1.5.1 The Standardization Process

Setting a standard for mobile communication is not a one-time job, it is an ongoing process. The standardization forums are constantly evolving their standards trying to meet new demands for services and features. The standardization process is different in the different forums, but typically includes the four phases illustrated in Figure 1.4:

1. Requirements, where it is decided what is to be achieved by the standard.

2. Architecture, where the main building blocks and interfaces are decided.

3. Detailed specifications, where every interface is specified in detail.

4. Testing and verification, where the interface specifications are proven to work with real-life equipment.

Figure 1.4 The standardization phases and iterative process.

These phases are overlapping and iterative. As an example, requirements can be added, changed, or dropped during the later phases if the technical solutions call for it. Likewise, the technical solution in the detailed specifications can change due to problems found in the testing and verification phase.

Standardization starts with the requirements phase, where the standards body decides what should be achieved with the standard. This phase is usually relatively short.

In the architecture phase, the standards body decides about the architecture – that is, the principles of how to meet the requirements. The architecture phase includes decisions about reference points and interfaces to be standardized. This phase is usually quite long and may change the requirements.

After the architecture phase, the detailed specification phase starts. It is in this phase the details for each of the identified interfaces are specified. During the detailed specification of the interfaces, the standards body may find that previous decisions in the architecture or even in the requirements phases need to be revisited.

Finally, the testing and verification phase starts. It is usually not a part of the actual standardization in the standards bodies, but takes place in parallel through testing by vendors and interoperability testing between vendors. This phase is the final proof of the standard. During the testing and verification phase, errors in the standard may still be found and those errors may change decisions in the detailed standard. Albeit not common, changes may also need to be made to the architecture or the requirements. To verify the standard, products are needed. Hence, the implementation of the products starts after (or during) the detailed specification phase. The testing and verification phase ends when there are stable test specifications that can be used to verify that the equipment is fulfilling the standard.

Normally, it takes one to two years from the time when the standard is completed until commercial products are out on the market. However, if the standard is built from scratch, it may take longer since there are no stable components to build from.

1.5.2 The 3GPP Process

The Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is the standards-developing body that specifies the LTE/LTE-Advanced, as well as 3G UTRA and 2G GSM systems. 3GPP is a partnership project formed by the standards bodies ETSI, ARIB, TTC, TTA, CCSA, and ATIS. 3GPP consists of four Technical Specifications Groups (TSGs) – see Figure 1.5.

Figure 1.5 3GPP organization.

A parallel partnership project called 3GPP2 was formed in 1999. It also develops 3G specifications, but for CDMA2000, which is the 3G technology developed from the 2G CDMA-based standard IS-95. It is also a global project, and the organizational partners are ARIB, CCSA, TIA, TTA, and TTC.

3GPP TSG RAN (Radio Access Network) is the technical specification group that has developed WCDMA, its evolution HSPA, as well as LTE/LTE-Advanced, and is in the forefront of the technology. TSG RAN consists of five working groups (WGs):

1. RAN WG1, dealing with the physical layer specifications.

2. RAN WG2, dealing with the layer 2 and layer 3 radio interface specifications.

3. RAN WG3, dealing with the fixed RAN interfaces – for example, interfaces between nodes in the RAN – but also the interface between the RAN and the core network.

4. RAN WG4, dealing with the radio frequency (RF) and radio resource management (RRM) performance requirements.

5. RAN WG 5, dealing with the terminal conformance testing.

The scope of 3GPP when it was formed in 1998 was to produce global specifications for a 3G mobile system based on an evolved GSM core network, including the WCDMA-based radio access of the UTRA FDD and the TD-CDMA-based radio access of the UTRA TDD mode. The task to maintain and develop the GSM/EDGE specifications was added to 3GPP at a later stage and the work now also includes LTE (E-UTRA). The UTRA, E-UTRA and GSM/EDGE specifications are developed, maintained, and approved in 3GPP. After approval, the organizational partners transpose them into appropriate deliverables as standards in each region.

In parallel with the initial 3GPP work, a 3G system based on TD-SCDMA was developed in China. TD-SCDMA was eventually merged into release 4 of the 3GPP specifications as an additional TDD mode.

The work in 3GPP is carried out with relevant ITU recommendations in mind and the result of the work is also submitted to ITU. The organizational partners are obliged to identify regional requirements that may lead to options in the standard. Examples are regional frequency bands and special protection requirements local to a region. The specifications are developed with global roaming and circulation of terminals in mind. This implies that many regional requirements in essence will be global requirements for all terminals, since a roaming terminal has to meet the strictest of all regional requirements. Regional options in the specifications are thus more common for base stations than for terminals.

The specifications of all releases can be updated after each set of TSG meetings, which occur four times a year. The 3GPP documents are divided into releases, where each release has a set of features added compared to the previous release. The features are defined in Work Items agreed and undertaken by the TSGs. The releases from release 8 and onwards, with some main features listed for LTE, are shown in Figure 1.6. The date shown for each release is the day the content of the release was frozen. Release 10 of LTE is the version approved by ITU-R as an IMT-Advanced technology and is therefore also named LTE-Advanced.

Figure 1.6 Releases of 3GPP specifications for LTE.

1.5.3 The 3G Evolution to 4G

The first release of WCDMA Radio Access developed in TSG RAN was called release 99³ and contained all features needed to meet the IMT-2000 requirements as defined by the ITU. This included circuit-switched voice and video services, and data services over both packet-switched and circuit-switched bearers. The first major addition of radio access features to WCDMA was HSPA, which was added in release 5 with High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and release 6 with Enhanced Uplink. These two are together referred to as HSPA and an overview of HSPA is given in Chapter 19 of this book. With HSPA, UTRA goes beyond the definition of a 3G mobile system and also encompasses broadband mobile data.

The 3G evolution continued in 2004, when a workshop was organized to initiate work on the 3GPP Long-Term Evolution (LTE) radio interface. The result of the LTE workshop was that a study item in 3GPP TSG RAN was created in December 2004. The first 6 months were spent on defining the requirements, or design targets, for LTE. These were documented in a 3GPP technical report [10] and approved in June 2005. Most notable are the requirements on high data rate at the cell edge and the importance of low delay, in addition to the normal capacity and peak data rate requirements. Furthermore, spectrum flexibility and maximum commonality between FDD and TDD solutions are pronounced.

During the fall of 2005, 3GPP TSG RAN WG1 made extensive studies of different basic physical layer technologies and in December 2005 the TSG RAN plenary decided that the LTE radio access should be based on OFDM in the downlink and DFT-precoded OFDM in the uplink. TSG RAN and its working groups then worked on the LTE specifications and the specifications were approved in December 2007. Work has since then continued on LTE, with new features added in each release, as shown in Figure 1.6. Chapters 7–17 will go through the details of the LTE radio interface in more detail.

The work on IMT-Advanced within ITU-R WP5D came in 2008 into a phase where the detailed requirements and process were announced through a circular letter [5]. Among other things, this triggered activities in 3GPP, where a study item on LTE-Advanced was started. The task was to define requirements and investigate and propose technology components to be part of LTE-Advanced. The work was turned into a Work Item in 2009 in order to develop the detailed specifications.

Within 3GPP, LTE-Advanced is seen as the next major step in the evolution of LTE. LTE-Advanced is therefore not a new technology; it is an evolutionary step in the continuing development of LTE. As shown in Figure 1.6, the features that form LTE-Advanced are part of release 10 of 3GPP LTE specifications. Wider bandwidth through aggregation of multiple carriers and evolved use of advanced antenna techniques in both uplink and downlink are the major components added in LTE release 10 to reach the IMT-Advanced targets.

The work on LTE-Advanced within 3GPP is planned with the ITU-R time frame in mind, as shown in Figure 1.7. LTE-Advanced was submitted as a candidate to the ITU-R in 2009 and is now included in the set of radio interface technologies announced by ITU-R [6] in October 2010 to be included as a part of the IMT-Advanced radio interface specifications. This is very much aligned with what was from the start stated as a goal for LTE, namely that LTE should provide the starting point for a smooth transition to 4G (= IMT-Advanced) radio access.

Figure 1.7 3GPP time schedule for LTE-Advanced in relation to ITU time-schedule on IMT-Advanced.

Since LTE-Advanced is an integral part of 3GPP LTE release 10, it is described in detail together with the corresponding components of LTE in Chapters 7–17 of this book.

¹The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) consists of the telecom administrations from 48 countries.

²The T1.P1 committee was part of T1, which presently has joined the ATIS standardization organization.

³For historical reasons, the first 3GPP release is named after the year it was frozen (1999), while the following releases are numbered 4, 5, 6, etc.

Chapter 2

High Data Rates in Mobile Communication

Publisher Summary

This chapter discusses the basic constraints for high data rates in mobile communication and different means to increase the achievable data rates in different mobile-communication scenarios. One main target for the evolution of mobile communication is to provide the possibility for significantly higher end-user data rates compared to what is achievable with, for example, the first releases of the 3G standards. This includes the possibility for higher peak data rates and possibility for significantly higher data rates over the entire cell area. In a mobile-communication system, when noise is the main source of radio-link impairment (a noise-limited scenario), the data rates that can be provided in are always limited by the available received signal power or, in the general case, the received signal-power-to-noise-power ratio. Any increase of the achievable data rate within a given bandwidth requires at least the same relative increase of the received signal power. At the same time, if sufficient received signal power can be made available, any data rate can, at least in theory, be provided within a given limited bandwidth. This chapter briefly discusses some of the fundamental constraints that exist in terms of what data rates can actually be achieved in different scenarios. The chapter also explains higher order modulation in combination with channel coding. The chapter concludes with a discussion on variations in instantaneous transmit power and multicarrier